Conceptual Understanding:
Key Question:
How powerful are different stakeholders in relation to coastal margin management?
Key Content:
- Coastal erosion and flooding management strategies, including cliff stabilisation, sea walls, managed retreat and population preparedness.
- Conflicting pressures on the coastline, including commercial land use (tourism, industry and housing) and conservation measures.
- Management of coral reefs and mangrove swamps, including different stakeholder perspectives on their use and value.
- Sovereignty rights of nations in relation to territorial limits along coastal margins and exclusive economic zones.
Thursday 20 April 2023
What are the causes and consequences of increasing demand abiotic resources of oceans?
Lesson Objective:
- To examine the causes and consequences of increasing demand for the abiotic resources of oceans, including minerals, oil and gas.
Starter: Abiotic resources in the ocean.
- What types of abiotic resources are found on the ocean seabed?
- How important are they?
- What are the potential consequences of their exploitation?
Task 1. The Contested Arctic Ocean
Study the map of the Arctic and discuss the reasons why the Arctic appears to be such a contested ocean.
Task 2. Causes and Consequences of Increased Ocean Oil and Gas Extraction.
Complete the table on this Google Doc as you watch the following videos on the causes and consequences of increased ocean oil and gas extraction in the ocean.
Task 3. Seabed Mineral Mining
Read the following information and study the diagram below. Then answer the following question:
- What are the causes and consequences of seabed mineral mining?
The Rising Demand for Seabed Minerals
Rising demand for minerals and metals, in tandem with the depletion of land-based resources, has led to a surge of interest in marine mineral resources. Although no commercial scale deep-sea mining has taken place, a range of mining operations are active in the shallow seabed. However, exploration contracts for deep-sea resources have been awarded to companies from countries including China, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, France and Japan for three different mineral resources: seafloor massive sulfides (SMS), ferromanganese crusts and polymetallic nodules. Mining the seabed carries significant environmental concerns, some of which have been highlighted over the past 5 years in relation to applications for mining in continental shelf regions (for example, ironsands and phosphorite mining in New Zealand waters; New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority, 2016). Given the nature, scale and location of proposed seabed mining activities, serious and widespread negative impacts on biodiversity are inevitable and likely to be irreversible (Van Dover et al., 2017). Other impacts include conflict with other users of the sea, such as the fishing industry and pharmaceutical firms looking to exploit marine genetic resources (Armstrong et al., 2012).
